"You're not going out there. You're staying in the car." But Clyde dug the binoculars from the glove compartment. "I came over here to look for my Packard, not to chauffeur some self-designated feline busybody bent on making trouble."
Joe slid up on the seat again. The two cops had disappeared, presumably buzzed through to the stairs or elevator. The black cat had vanished, too. Stepping onto Clyde's legs, Joe was prepared to leap out the open window, when Clyde grabbed the nape of his neck.
"Let go! I'm just listening!" With his head out the window, he tried to catch a word or two when Consuela opened the upstairs door to the officers, but he could hear nothing over the sound of a passing car. Glancing back at Clyde, he lifted a paw, claws out, until Clyde sensibly loosened his grip.
Having closed and locked the panels, Consuela shoved the blue suede evening bag at Azrael. "Get in the bedroom. If they start to search, take it up the trellis. Hide it on the roof." "You better unlock the French doors." Azrael lifted the bagful of jewelry, bowing his neck. Damn thing weighed a ton. She fled past him for the bedroom; he heard the French doors open. As he dragged the bag up the hall, she hurried out again.
"Get a move on," she snapped over her shoulder. "If I don't let them in, and if the bastards have a warrant, they'll call the manager to unlock the damn door."
Taking the bag in his teeth, he dragged it across the bedroom and onto the balcony. The weight of all that gold nearly dislocated his spine. How did she think he was going to get that thing up the trellis? Damn humans. As much as he wanted a few select pieces, he didn't need to take it all, not for his purposes.
But there was no time to try to dig the bag open. Chomping down securely on the blue suede, he leaped onto the trellis and tried to climb.
The trellis was a frail thing, and the vine was just as thin, hardly strong enough to hold a good-size sparrow.
A sturdy enough pine tree stood beyond the window, its branches rising above the building, but the trunk was too far away for a leap, even without his burden. If the cops arrested Consuela and Hollis, he had two choices. He could secure the jewelry for Dorriss, and could pretty much write his own ticket: hide the bag on the roof and, when the law finished searching the condo and took away those two losers, call Dorriss. What could be easier?
Or he could choose the most impressive piece or two, a bracelet or choker that would fit around his neck perhaps. Dump the rest on the roof for the pigeons, then go on to follow is own plans.
Dragging his burden off the trellis onto the clay tiles, he could hear, below, businesslike voices from the living room as the cops questioned Consuela.
28
The binoculars had been Joe's idea. Clyde had to admit, the 7X35 lenses gave him a sharp, almost intimate view through the third-floor window of the condo where Consuela and the uniformed officer stood talking. "I don't see the plainclothes guy."
"See the cat?"
"Not a sign of him."
That made Joe nervous. "What are they doing in there? Wish you could lip read. Why don't you call Harper, see if he got the warrant, see if that's what this is about."
Clyde lowered the binoculars, looking at Joe. "Harper doesn't need to know I'm here. And how would I know about a warrant?"
"Just play dumb. Tell him you came up to the city because you were worried about Kate-tell him the truth, Clyde. He doesn't need to know what else you're interested in, or where you are at this particular moment."
"So when I tell him I came up to see Kate, he's going to offer gratis information about a search being conducted by San Francisco PD?"
"Feel him out, draw him out. You can do that. Maybe those guys are just fishing-that's more than we had time to do."
Their plan had been to walk through the complex trying to see into the garages that occupied the first floor beneath the apartments. They'd thought maybe there'd be windows in the back. But they hadn't had time to look for the Packard before they saw Consuela and the black tomcat, and then the cops showed. Now, as the uniformed officer moved out of sight, Clyde's cell phone rang.
"Damen," he said softly. Then, "Where are you?"
Joe leaped to the back of the seat to press his ear to the phone. Kate was saying, "We're at Ghirardelli Square for breakfast, waiting for our order. I've made an appointment with an appraiser, for Lucinda's jewelry, just before noon. I just stepped outside to do that, and to check my messages; the gardens are so beautiful. What's this about your car? Where are you?"
"Just up from you, opposite the yacht harbor. Do you- Hold on."
Above them in the condo, Consuela had left the window. But the black cat had appeared at the other end of the condo on a balcony. Clyde felt Joe's claws digging into his shoulder as together they watched Azrael climb up a bougainvillea vine, clawing his way toward the roof. The black cat moved slowly, dragging something heavy that was dangling from his clenched teeth. "What is that thing?" Clyde said. "Something blue. Looks like a woman's purse."
On the phone, Kate gasped, "That's…"
But Joe was out the window, slashing Clyde's hand when Clyde tried to grab him, dropping to the street behind a passing car. He could hear Kate shouting into the phone as Clyde bailed out behind him, swerving into the path of a cab. Joe was safely across when tires squealed, and then Clyde was across, yelling as Joe headed for the end of the building where a pine tree rose, as bare as a telephone pole, its high, faraway branches brushing the roof where Azrael had disappeared.
Storming up the tree, Joe leaped for the roof, his claws scrabbling and slipping on the slick, rounded tiles. Ahead of him among a maze of heating vents and chimneys a black tail flashed and was gone. Watching for the tomcat to show again, Joe studied the shadows among the rooftop machinery.
Joe waited for some time, then slipped in among the pipes and wire mesh boxes, sniffing the air. All he could detect was the smell of machine oil, ocean, and fish from the wharves.
But then, where the shadows of two chimneys converged, he saw a faint movement. He remained still, his heart pounding.
Azrael appeared suddenly, leaping to the top of a wire cage. Dropping the blue bag between his paws, he hunched low over it, watching Joe. Crouched in attack mode, his amber eyes were slitted, his teeth bared. At this moment, against the sky, he looked as huge and fierce as if the beast did, indeed, bear the blood of jaguars as he boasted.
Warily, Joe approached him. As he rounded on Azrael, he heard from the apartment below a crash that sounded like furniture breaking, heard Consuela swear, then a softer thud, and one of the cops shouted. At the same instant, Joe made a flying leap onto the mesh box and straight into Azrael's claws. Burying his teeth in the tomcat's shoulder, he bit and raked, ripping his hind claws down Azrael's side. Azrael, twisting with the power of a thrashing boa, bit into Joe's belly. Below them glass shattered, a cop barked an order, and then silence, sudden and complete.
Coming at Joe with all the screaming power of an enraged jaguar, Azrael slashed at Joe's face; Joe tasted blood. Clawing at each other, the two toms slid across the tiles rolling and scrabbling. And as Joe leaped for the black cat's throat, the pounding of hard shoes came running, sliding, and Clyde loomed over them, diving for Azrael. Azrael gave a violent surge that hurled Joe sideways, slashed Clyde's arm, and twisted out of Clyde's hands, snatching the bag where it had fallen among the shadows. Weighted by his burden, Azrael sailed off the roof into the overhanging branches of the pine and was gone, scorching down in a shower of pine bark. Joe streaked down after him, hitting the ground with a thud that knocked his wind out. Already Azrael was half a block away flashing through the condo gardens and up the hill at the back, his neck bowed sideways as he dragged the blue suede bag. As Joe leaped after him, he heard Clyde running across the roof above, and down wooden stairs somewhere at the back.